it's like a sadness. you can't sleep. it just kind of consumes you. and even when you can move on, you just never forget someone who has really left such an impact on your life. >> she's a really good mom. she really loved her kids. >> she was just 20 steps from her front door. she never made it. >> we can't explain what happened in those 20 steps. >> it just didn't make sense to me. >> a working mom murdered. >> it is hard to imagine that anybody would be capable of something like that. >> police started with the men in her life. was one of them behind her death? >> everybody was a suspect. >> the estranged husband -- >> you know you were a person of

interest. >> the ex -- >> susie, where are you? >> the brand-new boyfriend. >> somebody knew we were seeing each other and didn't like it. >> they were all there the morning of the murder. whodunit? >> my stomach was in my throat. >> it was really hard for my brain to wrap around that. >> i'm lester holt and this is "dateline." here's keith morrison with our season premiere "footprint in the dust." >> at 5:20 the passenger side door opened, the woman stepped out, and hurried towards the entrance of her downtown apartment.

her coat disshelved. the man's eyes followed her in the dark. susie. lightning in the bottle. >> they were all there. >> there at susie's front door. >> each one of them was part that crime scene. >> but how many and who? who are the eyes in the dark that started that awful cascade of events of terrible things? >> i just dropped the phone and cried and cried and cried. i just couldn't believe that that could happen three times in one family. >> eastern montana is like nothing else. that unsullied sky, the vast rolling prairies dottesparsely

with tiny old hamlets in which business is personal and where friends and families have worked the same places for generations. places like circle, population 600, susie's hometown. >> she livened things up a lot. it was nice to have that little breath of fresh air in the family because the rest of us were a little more quiet. >> susie was the fifth of six kids born to marlene and her husband jack, the countrity under sheriff. >> she loved the horses and she lover e loved to go riding. >> susie's love of horses grew as she did and shaped her work ethic. her sister-in-law. >> she was not afraid to be out there shoveling manure or fixing a fence. she was a feisty thing. >> but if there was one word most used to describe susie, it

wasn't so much feisty as -- >> fun with a capital "f." >> she was very impulsive, so she didn't think a lot ahead. she just kind of went with the moment. >> and so when susie went off to a technical school three hours away in billings and got herself a boyfriend, perhaps what happened next shouldn't have come as a very big surprise. >> it was she's pregnant. you get married. that's just what you do. >> and so she did. they made a big happy thing of it. the whole family gathered in circle for a real country church wedding where susie introduced her parents and siblings to her new husband, a kid named marty. what was that like for you to? >> finding out she was pregnant and things were going to be a little bit different than you thought.

>> the whole family accepted it because it was susie's choice. >> before long, susie gave birth to a little girl named myra. >> she really loved her kids. they were really a big part of her life. when her and marty split, they were really everything in her life. >> so late 90s now, susie was working as a medical transcriptionist in a place called glendive, and that's where she met ted casey. he was the real deal, a grown up this time, a rancher 14 years older than susie. >> he had horses and boy, that was just right for her. >> wedding number two. this was 1998. the kids shea and mariah called ted dad. then there were two more kids, girls.

for almost a decade, the marriage seemed to be just fine, but by then susie was sharing secrets with val about ted. >> he wanted to tame her, i think. i guess i kind of joke around and say that he wanted her to be home in time for the 10:00 news. he didn't want her to stay out and have fun. >> at the casey ranch, love started to feel like one more chore. >> i think they grew apart. they just really both changed. >> then one liquid evening out at a bar things went seriously sideways. ted got mad, dumped a beer on susie's head, slapped her, and spent the night in jail. not long after ted pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault. >> she wasn't very happy with ted and she was starting to make some good decisions to find some happiness again.

>> and so by the spring of 2008, susie and the kids were living at the upon tponderosa apartmen. people noticed what susie was up to. liked her, but noticed -- >> people thought of susie as someone who was going through a time sowing some wild oats. she liked to have fun and she was having a lot of fun. >> then it got to that friday evening in april. >> when she came in to see me, she was really happy and she had makeup on, which wasn't really a susie thing and that was great, so i knew something was up. >> so val watched as susie bounded out the door while the two teenagers fended for themselves. and susie headed out on the town. >> this girl has got to have a date tonight.

>> and the very next morning -- >> mom, pick up. >> when susie's worried children and increasingly frantic family called in to check on her, susie, who always kept her phone within reach, did not answer. >> when we come back, susie casey's sudden disappearance. can the people she loved help solve it? >> i mean, what do you do? how do you find somebody? >> i was a detective. i was going to backtrack all of her steps. you could tell the house was dark and it was like an eerie feeling. with the pain and swelling of my moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis... ordinary objects often seemed... intimidating. doing something simple...

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the morning sun warmed toward another glorious spring day. glendive, montana. but in the ponderosa apartments it was anxiety that infected the air. 14-year-old myra tried again and again and again to reach her mother. >> call me when you get this. >> but she never once failed to come home. mariah's next call was to her grandparents.

>> she told grandma mom wasn't around. >> sometimes you almost thought mariah was the mom and susie the kid because mariah was pretty grown up and smart. >> she was the somewhat more level headed one. >> right. >> soon phones were ringing all over. >> i thought this is silly. she went somewhere, the kids forgot, and it's going to be a funny ha, ha. >> the kids were sufficiently independent to get themselves up and leave for their respective activities, but from susie not a word. sister-in-law val hadn't heard yet that susie hasn't come home. >> we had a craft show in town and i thought she would want to come with me. when she didn't respond that morning, i thought that was kind of odd. when i was at the actual craft show is when i got the call from

rusty. >> rusty, val's husband, susie's little brother. >> what did rusty say? >> he told me that the kids couldn't find susie when they woke up and that everybody was just really worried because this wasn't susie. she would never just not tell her children or be there for them. and she wasn't there. >> val's next attempt to researreach susie wasn't quite so calm. i mean, what do you do? how do you find somebody? >> i was a detective. i was like -- i was going to backtrack all of her steps, and so that's exactly what i did. >> val made some calls. found susie had been drinking with friends the night before until about 11:00 p.m. for when she left for what was apparently a date with a new boyfriend, someone susie had just started seeing after her separation from

her husband, ted. val's mind was racing. >> i also thought she had maybe just fainted somewhere or had a heart attack. >> still, when her min minmind settled, her first move was -- >> i thought had to go to ted's. maybe she was at ted's and they had an argument and she couldn't answer the phone. >> ted casey pleaded guilty to assaulting susie six months before. that's why she moved off the ranch to the apartment, but when val arrived at ted's place. >> you could tell it was dark and there was no cars there. it was like an eerie feeling. i just felt like i couldn't get out of the car by myself. >> so she decided to leave and picked up her husband rusty. the two of them got a key to susie's apartment.

they opened the door and here's what they found. this was a videotape the police made later. >> as we kind of walked through the apartment and really realized that she wasn't there, again that adrenaline burst something isn't right. something isn't right. >> it's empty. she's not there. she's gone. >> she's not here, yeah. >> so val decided to go find that new boyfriend susie had a date with. the last person to be seen with her. his name was brad. >> he would know where she was. >> brad lived with his soon-to-be ex-wife less than five minutes from susie's apartment. val drove over and knocked on the door. >> i said susie's not home. we can't find her. she's not answering her calls and we're all really worried. then i remember exactly what he said to me. what do you mean she isn't home? i dropped her off at 5:00 a.m. that's when it hit we're going to the police.

something's not right. >> it certainly wasn't. the man whose marriage was breaking up the last man to be with her didn't know a thing. really? coming up -- susie's new boyfriend fields a few questions down at the station. >> did you ever wonder about brad and whether he was capable of any bad thing? >> when she went missing, i wondered about everybody. everybody was a suspect. >> when "dateline" continues. wherever the journey takes you, carry american express gold. it's more than a card. it's the gear that gets it done. get an extra 15% off through saturday october 3rd.

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people disappear all the time in america. many of them turn up again. and maybe in some big city somewhere susie's absence wouldn't have raised the alarm quite so fast, but here -- olivia ringer was a young lawyer then. >> you have to be kidding. this is glendive. she's got to be around somewhere. >> but when susie's brother and sister-in-law roared around town looking, it only made them more upset. >> as a kid, when you're younger, you always wish you had things you didn't have. i just always wished i had a big sister, and when i met susie, she was -- she was my big sister. and i guess i just never imagined she wouldn't be in my life. >> that afternoon, val and her

husband rusty drove over to the glendive police department. they sat down with then captain now chief, ty ulrick. >> they said susie always answers her phone twice. >> they were keenly aware of susie's history. the abuse six months prior at the hands of soon-to-be ex-husband ted casey. >> the night before she disappeared said value, susie was with another man, a guy named brad, who she said she was crazy about, and who had to have been the last person she had seen before she vanished. >> did you ever wonder about brad and whether hec was capabl of any bad things?

>> when she went missing, i wondered about everybody. everybody was a suspect. your mind continues to play and play and play different scenarios of what could have happened and where she is. >> and well, that question remained unanswered. brad holzer came in for an interview. brad told the police that he and susie actually had quite a long history. >> how long have you known susie? >> well, we went out in high school. >> okay. >> she was 16. i was 19. probably went out for a couple of months is all. >> then they lost touch for nearly two decades until st. patrick's day 2008 just three weeks before she disappeared when their eyes met at a bar downtown. >> out of the blue, came up to me. i knew who she was right away. recognized her immediately. >> and in the weeks since, brad said he and susie spent every possible moment together, though given their kids and their

respective tangled marital issues it was complicated. the night before she disappeared, said brad, susie had been drinking with a couple of girlfriends before he picked her up and they drove out of town to sit by the yellowstone river. >> then that's where we were going on 10:45 until 11:00 until 5:00 a.m. we drove out there and parked and did the same thing we usually did. talked, kissed, stuff like that. >> it was just about 5:00 in the morning, said brad, when he drove back to town and he parked across the street from susie's apartment. >> did you guys make out? >> probably for about five minutes. she got out, walked back to her -- across the street to her apartment. i know she was at least halfway across the street before i started backing out. >> brad swore he drove straight home and went to bad.

then brad cast suspicion elsewhere. >> brad, do you know where susan's at? >> i have no idea. i wish i did. >> where do you think she is, if you had to guess? >> my guess would be ted. >> there was one more thing, said brad. somebody sent him a weird e-mail the morning before he has last date with susie. maybe ted was behind it somehow. it reads, how's your girlfriend? how does your wife feel about it? the sender a denise johnson. >> still in the dark as to who sent that and who the hell denise jackson is. >> that made the cop's ears perk up. >> there's somebody out there. some jealousy probably. i needed to find out who sent those e-mails. >> so they told brad don't leave town, and they set out to talk

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by the sunday of that anxious weekend in april 2008, the whereabouts of susie casey was a local preoccupation in glendive, montana. >> there was a lot of talk about, oh, yeah, we saw her walking down the street sometime. maybe someone picked her up. >> the young attorney couldn't help but hear what people were saying. >> did she go home with someone? did she drive off somewhere? >> susie's mother was afraid something awful had happened, and for the second time she

called sister car lean two hours away in north dakota. >> and that's when i knew something was really, really wrong, so we packed up suitcases and headed to glendive to see what we could do to help to find her. >> but where could they look? it is the size of delaware. far more hunting places than that are people. >> we had a few pings off of cell phone towers. we had horse back. we had four-wheelers, airplanes, helicopters, people on foot, and nothing. >> meanwhile, they processed susie's chevy trailblazer for any sort of evidence. same in her apartment. and found nothing. nothing of particular importance anyway. then they had a look around outside susie's apartment building and found something kind of curious. a couple of curious things actually.

one was a shoe print in the alcove of the building next door to susie's place. 40 or 50 feet away, looked like something had been dragged, something heavy along the ground near the dumpster. did either of those things have anything to do with susie's disappearance? maybe the rejected husband could tell them. ted casey. the morning susie vanished, he went to work, helped his brother with a project, then went to a rodeo. so by the next day, police were very eager to talk to ted. >> your thoughts about ted were not very friendly ones at that point. >> no. >> ted had reasons to be upset the woman was leaving him. he was angry, humiliated. a costly divorce was looming. child support to pay. first, they asked ted about that incident in the bar the night they arrested him and put him in jail. >> i poured a drink on her head. barely slapped her because she

threw herself on the ground and we were both drinking. it just happened. but, you know, i suppose you get to such a -- so much pressure and after a while, it explodes. >> explodes? that was a curious thing to say. ted insisted he had last seen susie about 7:00 the evening before she disappeared when she dropped off the two little girls at his house for the night, but ted did admit that he confronted susie on the phone a couple hours later after receiving a strange phone call himself around 9:00 p.m. >> what was said? >> just that. brad holzer or whatever has been screwing your wife. click. >> brad holzer, susie's boyfriend of three weeks. >> what did you think about that? >> well, i wasn't very happy. i mean, i called her up and said, hey, who's this brad

holzer or whatever? i said, i just got a call that you've been doing him. oh, no, no. i'd never do that. i've never cheated on you. i said we are still married even though we're not living together. and i just hung up the phone. well, she called me right back. then she admitted that she knew the guy. she knew who he was. and that was about the end of the conversation. >> was he upset? yes, of course, he said he was and yet ted told his interrogator he fell asleep right away. then got up around 5:00 a.m. to do chores and drop off his girls with a babysitter and meet a coworker at city hall by 6:00. >> i was thinking it was like 10 ten to 6:00 or something when i got there. >> ted drove past susie's apartment.

he admitted as much on his way to that meeting at city hall. put him around her front door minutes from when she went across the street dishevelled. as the glendive police department checked out the story, ted went home to look after the two youngest girls who are living with him full-time why mariah and shea went to live with val and her husband. >> mariah was just tormented. it was just really, really hard for her. >> harder and harder for everyone as day after day the search for susie produced nothing. >> as time went on, it was clear that she wasn't around anywhere, so it was just a really scary time. >> what were those days like? >> they were pure hell. you just sat and wait and wait

for the phone to ring. >> then nearly a month after susie's disappearance it did. coming up -- >> the hardest day of my life. >> a horrifying discovery down by the river and another discovery down at the station. brad holzer's wife. what was she doing there? >> honestly, am i a suspect? >> when "dateline" continues. walgreens. at the corner of happy and healthy. craving the taste of chocolate but watching calories? introducing light & fit greek with chocolate on top.

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nearly a month after susie casey vanished on an early spring morning in glendive, montana, it was the yellowstone river that finally gave her back. >> i was sitting at my desk and the sheriff walked by and said there's a body floating in fallon. >> fallon is a small town upstream from glendive. >> it was on shore. took a look. i knew. at that point, we're changing from missing persons to homicide. >> susie's family gathered at val and rusty's house. >> i knew it couldn't be anyone else, but it didn't go over well

all the way because i had a job to do and my job was to keep this family together. the authorities came and told us it was her body. i didn't let my emotions just run with it because i knew we had those children downstairs. >> the older two, mariah and shea. >> i think that's the hardest day of my life. and i've had a lot of hard day, but that was the hardest i think. >> word spread that susie had finally been found. glendive mourned and relaxed in some degree. >> i think it was slm lialmost sense of relief. we found her. we can see what happens. >> the department of criminal investigation had been called in to help the police.

>> we determined from the autopsy that she was not breathing when she went into the water, so it was not a drowning. >> all right. so she was killed first. >> that's correct. the autopsy revealed that her i hyoid bone was broken, which was consistent with strangulation. >> when she left, she was wearing my white sweatshirt. >> they talked repeatedly to brad's wife, though she and her husband maintained they had no motive to kill susie. they were headed for a divorce, but how did she feel really. after all, they were still living together. did brad's wife, who might be considered the odd woman out in a love triangle, have a reason to kill susie?

>> honestly, we have a variety of suspects. yeah, right now both you and brad are. >> but brad's story didn't change. he and susie were out all night. he dropped her at her apartment at 5:00 a.m. his wife insisted that was true. said she came home from a date of her own about 6:00 a.m. and found him already asleep. >> i went in, and the bedroom door was closed and i look in, and he was in bed sleeping. >> but brad's wife added to the mystery as well because it turned out she, too, claimed she got a strange phone call that week, the week susie disappeared. >> they said, can we leave a message for brad? i said okay. they said, tell him to stop messing around with married women. and i said, what are you talking about? and then she hung up. >> so it was a female? >> a woman? this was getting stranger by the

minute. ted claimed it was a male who called him to rat on susie. brad said a female named denise johnson sent him an e-mail asking him how his wife felt about his girlfriend. what police really needed was something concrete, something physical to prove brad's whereabouts to back up his store and clear his name. >> we checked the bank for the footage and sure enough there it is. >> a u.s. bank branch just a couple of doors down from susie's apartment. of course, it had a camera on its atm, so they asked to see the video and what do you know. very grainy and extremely hard to see clearly, it appeared to back up everything brad said. early in the morning just before 5:00 a.m., 4:52 to be exact, you can see a pickup pull up across the street from the ponderosa apartments.

>> we see brad holzer pull up in his vehicle on the security cameras, and susie casey is with him in that vehicle for a period of time over 20 minutes. the dome light comes on. we believe that's when susie exits the vehicle. this was about 5:19 a.m. >> then brad's pickup pulled away out of frame. >> so when brad holzer's wife was interviewed, she had been out all night. she comes home and said when she got home at 6:00 a.m., brad was sleeping. we have a timeline from 5:29 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. where brad holzer has to commit this homicide and hide the body or hide the body and dispose of it later. we didn't feel brad had much of a motive to murder susan casey.

>> to hear that was quite a relief, as you might have imagined, to brad who has played the scene countless times. >> in hindsight, it bothers me that i didn't wait and watch her, but there's no reason that anybody should be there. it was 5:00 in the morning. the whole town was dead. i just remember needing to get home, wanting to get home as soon as possible. i didn't cross my mind that anything would happen or anyone was there. >> a gallant little gesture he didn't make. brad holzer has all kinds of time to think about that. >> sometimes i think about her, yeah. i wondered what we could have been doing right now. there could have been a future there. >> susie was laid to rest on a sunny day in may 2008 in a little cemetery outside her hometown. no one the slightest aware of how much more was still to come. coming up -- >> seems like you didn't make it home last night.

>> an angry message from susie's husband ted and a closer look at his story. >> you know you were a person of interest? >> yes. >> what exactly did he do the morning of the murder.

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love and money make the world go round, of course. though here, as anywhere, they also happen to be leading motives for murder. husbands scorned, convicted of misdemeanor domestic assault, on the hook for child support, and a life insurance payout. he was angry. tried to reach her on the phone. >> actually, i called susie. whatever i called her, i left city hall then. >> yes, indeed.

here is the angry voice mail ted left. >> well, susie, i just called mariah. seems like you didn't make it home last night, so maybe what somebody called me and said maybe is true. you're doing somebody else. >> so once again, it seemed those age old motives pointed at the husband. >> 90% of the time you would be right. >> but was it possible that ted could be the exception that proves the rule. ted was, in fact, at work that morning as seen by a coworker exactly when he said he was. >> if he did commit the homicide, wouldn't have enough time to dispose of the body. >> remember, they found susie's body in the yellowstone river 20 miles upstream from glendive. they pulled out the atm video by

susie's apartment building. ted drove to city hall to work. it's a small town and city hall is just blocks from susie's place. ted said she drove right past her apartment and sure enough. >> we could see a vehicle driving by at approximately the time ted said she drove by the ponderosa apartments. >> just like ted told the police. >> so he's basically got a 15-minute window where he's dropping his kids off and then he drives to city hall and works there for a period of time. >> given how close together everything was, wouldn't have taken much time to kill susie, hide her body, and retrieve it later for disposal. possible? quite, thought police. mind you phone records seemed to back up what ted said about calling susie the night she went missing. the angry message he left on her

voice mail, it was hours after she vanished. either ted was trying to fool police with the voice mail and his public movements that morning, or he didn't have any idea what happened to susie. and therefore this time the husband didn't do it, if he was telling the truth that is. >> you know you were a person of interest. >> yes, and you can expect that. >> sure, but how was it to be treated that way? >> it doesn't feel good. every place you go, everything you do you've got people watching, talking, pointing. but i did nothing wrong. i had nothing to hide from, so -- >> did the police believe that? you'd think if they did believe him, they'd make some sort of announcement that ted was in the clear, but they did not and so it was awkward, especially when they were looking for susie. >> did you talk part in the search?

>> i did. >> what was that like? >> it's kind of a tough situation. you know, what happens if you find her if you're by yourself and you find her? >> that would suggest you knew where she was in the first place because you put her there. >> ted was still a target of the investigation and also quite suddenly a single parent of two little girls, age 6 and 8. >> six days seemed like six months. you weren't sleeping much. i had headaches every day for over a month all day long. >> so how do you tell a little girl that her mother is never coming home, that she's dead? >> i guess i just told them. >> how'd they take it? >> they broke down. you know, they didn't let me out of their sight for quite a few days. >> i can imagine. >> and especially when it came nighttime.

they were glued to you. >> there was, remember, an insurance policy on susie's life. ted was the beneficiary. wasn't a lot, but they cut the check and ted casey cashed it. >> what did you do with it? >> paid her funeral expenses and what was left, i split four ways between the four kids. >> could have kept it. >> could have, but that's not the right thing to do. >> was it enough to be very much help to the kids? >> not much. you know, there was probably maybe $3,000, $4,000 left after funeral expenses, but it helps. >> so does ted sound like a guilty man? but if it wasn't him and it wasn't the boyfriend, brad, then

who killed susie? and why? coming up -- >> please call me. i'm worried. >> a mystery caller. someone was desperate to reach susie. >> really kind of obsessive. >> boy, this is something we need to look at here. >> when "dateline" continues.

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susie casey missing for almost a month has been found in montana's yellowstone river murdered. was one of the men in her life behind her death? police are investigating both of them. the new boyfriend who dropped her off at her apartment, the estranged husband, who was spotted on surveillance video just a block away, but now investigators are about to examine something else about susie's life, a third man, and a whole new layer of mystery. here again keith morrison. >> there was something in the air that night. no doubt about it. not every deadly sin, but certainly several swirling on

one city block in little glendive, montana. something that put at least two men, ted casey and brad holzer, on the same street within minutes of one another. who owned those eyes in the dark that watched susie casey in the moments before she disappeared? >> mom -- >> as you know, everybody's looking for you. give me a call. >> all of them tried calling the woman who never went anywhere without her phone. >> hello. just me. >> that phone was her lifeline, as susie' brother rusty and his wife val said in their interviews. >> i thought let's see which phone calls she had. >> that is when a very strange

story began to emerge. that's where we had seen all those phone calls from a number we didn't know who it belonged to. >> a number nobody recognized calling susie again and again all night long, but did that mystery caller leave a message? neither val nor rusty knew how to access susie's voice mail. >> when i called and asked mariah if she knew how to access her voice mail, she said yes almost instantly. over and over again it was the same voice. >> i would love to hear from you and make sure everything is okay with you. >> it was starting to get more desperate and needy. >> i don't know what to do. you won't answer me. >> really reminding me of when you're a teenager and you have

your first crush and the guy or the girl goes to call them the next day and they don't answer. usually most of us would stop. >> please let me know you're okay. >> but as a teenager, your emotions aren't really under control. it was like that, but the messages just continued to get closer together and just more desperate. >> please let me know that you're okay. please. everybody is very worried about you. >> i thought that this guy's strange to call that many times and really kind of obsessive. >> and we're all worried. call us. >> yeah, who was he talking about? >> who was this guy? who was he to susie, and why in less than four hours did he leave not one or two or four or six, but 22 voice mail messages for susie? >> please call me.

i'm worried. >> and then val suddenly knew. susie had only hinted at it, but there was another man in her life. someone from her past with whom she had reconnected as her marriage to ted fell apart. this man, her long ago first husband, the father of her two older children, marty larson. >> did she talk about him at all? >> i knew that she had had a previous marriage, but i didn't know anything more beyond that. >> marty had been out of susie's life for nearly a decade. no contact, no child support, nothing. but then in 2007, mariah, curious about her biological father, found him on the internet and reached out. marty came to visit a time or two. at least once, susie took the kids to see him three hours across the prairie in billings, montana.

her parents were among the very few people who knew. they were not happy. >> we got into an argument. i said susie, you don't want to do this. i said the family isn't going to really go for this, and she said, you mean everybody is going to disown me, so i just backed off. i said i'm not going to lose my daughter over him. and that was the end of it. >> how serious it got, nobody knew really. maybe they were just friendly. maybe it was more than that. now investigator ulrick typed marty larson in the database. >> and it popped up. i'd seen criminal trespass. >> not long after the wedding, apparently marty drove three hours down the highway from

billings to agaglendive and tur up outside the newlywed's house with a shotgun. he was convicted with criminal trespass and was slapped with what lifetime restraining order. no contact with susie or ted ever. >> at that point in time, i had a little red flag go up. >> marty and his given first name was walter was very worried about susie. desperate even as those nighttime hours went by without a word from her. marty lives three hours away in billings, so was that where he was calling from? one sure fire way to they can that out was check the cell phone towers. coming up -- >> oh, susie, where are you?

where are you? >> marty has a revelation for police. >> were you thinking that you two would get back together? >> that was the plan. i don't have time to be filling out my address, i need to be buying a dress. that's why i use masterpass. less typing, more dancing. sfx: tango music como te llamas? yo soy camarones. dip me. the easier way to shop online. masterpass from mastercard and your bank. it's the shortcut to priceless. (carter) making a mess.alent for but it's ok...our new kitchen is zoe proof. (announcer) the time saving frigidaire gallery smudgeproof appliances resist fingerprints. and clean easily. so now you have more time to savor all those "sweet" family moments. frigidaire gallery. our time-saving legend continues. energy. focus. help turn your potential...

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on i-94, it's a good three hours east-northeast across the rolling prairie from billings to the ponderosa apartment building in downtown glendive. ping, ping, ping pass the ever listening cell phone towers. >> i had no idea who marty larson was. >> he was the third man to put himself near susie casey the night she vanished. agent lee johnson found himself standing outside the apartment staring at this freshly washed mini van. >> it was very clean on the exterior because it had gone through an automated car wash.

the carpets had been cleaned. when you get into the cargo area, the back of the van was vigorously cleaned out with water and some type of cleaning solution. >> and in marty's apartment -- >> there was an empty bottle of toilet bowl cleaner in the kitchen garbage. the toilets didn't look like they had been recently cleaned, yet we had an empty container of lysol bathroom cleaner. >> it appeared to be a list of expenses, as if someone was planning quite seriously for a las vegas wedding. >> a breakdown of the trip for lodging, paying for a minister to marry them, and the return trip home. >> when investigators asked marty to take off his shirt, they saw scratches on his back. how in heaven's name would he

have gotten those? some struggle perhaps? the agents suggested they all sit down for a little q&a and marty said sure, but -- >> can i ask you one question first? >> sure. >> am i under arrest for something or being charged with something? >> no. >> marty said he and susie had reconnected the year before mostly for the children, but right away, said marty, they fell for each other all over again like true soul mates. that time ten years prior when he took a shotgun to ted and susie's house all forgiven. he was a different man now. >> the ten years we were apart i spent thinking she hated me and she spent thinking i hated her. >> did you think you two would get back together? >> that was the plan. >> he talked to her on the phone. >> i told her before she went

make sure you eat, make sure you don't drink too much. you don't need to get a dui and get in trouble like that. >> she promised to call him back later. >> if i'm sleeping, don't worry about it. it's okay. wake me up. >> afterall, they were a couple again, it was his business to worry about her. and when she didn't call -- >> then i called her at 12:30 because i hadn't heard from her. >> if you don't won't call me back by 1:00 -- >> i didn't know if she had gotten arrested or what was going on. and then i thought i'm going to go out there and see if she's okay, make sure that she got home. >> what time did you leave billings, do you recall? >> about 1:30ish. >> time stamps said 1:39 a.m., so he drove, he said, calling

and leaving voice messages for susie during the entire 220-mile trip. >> i just need to hear from you. please, please call me. i'm worried. >> expecting to hear from susie saying i'm fine, don't worry. don't come. but susie's call never came. >> what time did you get into glendive? >> 4:30, 5:00. >> again, true. he said he parked around the corner and walked to her apartment. her car was parked outside as if she was home. >> i went in the building. i knocked on the door softly because her bedroom was near the door hoping it would wake her and not the kids. hoping she'd come and tell me she was okay. and there was no answer, so i went out and called and texted a few times, hoping to wake her up. >> so did you ever encounter

susie at all? >> no. >> okay. >> i wish i would have seen her. >> he swore he didn't see susie arrive just before 5:00 a.m. with brad. didn't see what they were doing in her truck. but he did leave town, he said. video from another nearby bank seemed to back him up at 5:45 a.m. leaving one last frantic voice mail. >> just hoping to hear you're okay. >> police are paid to be skeptical. >> there's no doubt in my mind you saw her this morning. >> no, i didn't. >> but marty stuck to his story. and when detectives asked him why his mini van was so freshly washed -- >> on the way up there, i did kind of have one sort of major thing. there was a deer in the road that i hit and there was a bunch of deer stuck to the bottom of it. >> okay.

>> so i went and cleaned the bugs off of that. i didn't do a very good job though. >> a deer? really? but -- >> did you check into whether or not he actually did hit a deer? >> we did. we checked with the highway patrol. it was consistent with a deer. it was laying in the interstate. >> when they tested the tissue on the van, sure enough it was not human. it was animal tissue. but then when police asked if there was anyway they'd find susie's dna in, on, or under the van, marty said something as he often did that made police wonder. >> well, i guess what i'm saying is -- what i know is -- my thought is that was a deer. i guess i don't know for certaicertain that it couldn't have been here. >> would he try to tell police he ran susie down?

>> is there something you want to tell us? >> no, i haven't done anything. you can scrape everything out from underneath that van. it's deer as far as i know. >> and if that wasn't weird enough, as the detectives left the room -- >> oh, susie, where are you? where are you? those kids need you. i need you. i love you, susie. just wish i knew where you were. >> marty was now the prime suspect, the man in the crosshairs. but suspicion is so easy. the real question was did he do it. what cop or prosecutor would want to stake his or her career on a wild bet like that? coming up --

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once susie's family found out that her ex-husband marty larson had been in glendive the night she disappeared, reaction was quick and to the point. >> if i knew all this ten years earlier, i would have taken him for a ride. >> here's what most thought right away. >> it didn't add up that it was brad and it didn't add up that it was ted. >> but marty, perhaps? there were signs like those obsessive voice mails and the bank video and his own eadmissin

that he opened to reunite with susie, the mini van washed on his return home, and yet marty larson was not arrested. >> i think that frustration was really, really hard for the family. >> what was your expectation? that they would look at this material they had and just go and arrest marty? >> i guess i anticipated these things would move forward and who was responsible would be held accountable and time just kept ongoing. >> the thing is at that point susie's sister-in-law aval and rusty were still hearing marty and ted were both suspects. the older two were living with val and rusty. >> it was extremely difficult for shea and mariah both.

i remember we were so excited for him to have his own bedroom, his own space, but at night he couldn't sleep in his room. he had to sleep with mariah. >> because? >> he was scared marty was going to come and take him. >> his own father? >> i don't think he ever really called him father. i don't think any of us really did. i think he was just afraid of marty. >> val had a newborn of her own to go along with those extra responsibilities, and an overwhelming sadness that seeped into her bed, her kitchen, her life. an unwelcome house guest that simply refused to leave. >> my son was 4 months old when susie was taken from us. i don't remember him walking. i don't remember those moments i should remember as a mother. >> meanwhile, the investigation

was stuck in the weeds. >> i was thinking couple months and we're going to have an arrest and we just couldn't have the pieces at that time that we needed. >> 2008 went the way of all years. ted kept to himself. marty moved, left billings, went to phoenix, got a job. and at home in glendive, susie's brother, val's husband rusty, was having trouble with the rage. >> susie's death consumed him. when he went to sleep at night, he told me one night that he just wanted to stop feeling. i think it just haunted him that he felt he could have done something. >> and by the time a representative at the attorney general's office met with the family, many felt they were teamma teetering on the edge of sandy.

what was the hold up? >> that day i asked if she could tell us, as a family, that ted was no longer a suspect because the two little girls were living with ted at the time and mariah and shea were living with me. i just felt like i was the only person trying to salvage the relationship with the little girls and their siblings. and i just really wanted her to kind of crush that wall down and say that he wasn't a suspect and her response to me was that the case is still moving forward and he's still a suspect. >> that's quite a thing to hear. >> yeah. i just felt like i really needed to hear that at that time and i didn't get to hear that and that it was still possibly he could have had involvement. >> ted, who still under a cloud of suspicion, believed that marty killed susie. >> there was a lot of nights i didn't sleep real good wondering

if somebody was going to show up in the middle of the night with a gun. >> but it was rusty who devised a plan to do what prosecutors and police officers seemed unwilling to do. >> he was going to get justice for our family, even if he had to do it himself. >> what did you mean by that? >> he had made several plans about how he was going to kill marty, take marty's life just like marty took susie's. >> what would you say to him when he said things like that? >> that the case was moving forward and that wasn't something that he needed to do, thate had a son and his son needed him and me and that he couldn't leave us. >> eventually, it all came to that anyway. first, val and rusty divorced.

then in november 2011, three and a half years after the night susie was murdered -- >> i got a phone call in the middle of the night. >> rusty, her brother, 32 years old committed suicide. >> we've already lost susie. this can't be happening too. so it was really hard for my brain to wrap around that. >> so jack and marlene went to the little cemetery in circle to lay another child to rest. >> it crushed them and then to lose their two youngest. it just seemed like they aged 15 years. >> do you think rusty would be around today if they moved quicker on that case? >> i try not to go there. i mean, there's all this what-ifs. >> it wasn't long after her rusty was put in the ground a new county attorney was elected

in glendive. you've already met her. >> i felt we had a duty to give some explanation to jack and marlene and their family as to what was going on. they needed to know. they couldn't be left dangling out there. >> and they certainly were dangling. >> absolutely. >> if that were all, the hope for an answer and justice might have been simply ended there, but one morning as olivia was settling into her new office, there was a knock at the door. a man had come to call and he smiled and said -- >> hi, i'm brant light and we're going to try a homicide. >> coming up -- >> my stomach was in my throat. >> an arrest at last and new anguish that no one in the family saw coming. >> it hit you pretty hard, didn't it? >> yes. ed to treat bipolar depression,

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olivia could scarcely believe her eyes. the man at the door, the man who clearly intended to enlist her in some sort of cause, was one of the best known prosecutors in all of montana. >> when you saw him in the door that day, what happened to you? >> i think my stomach was in my throat especially when he said we're going to try a homicide. are you kidding me? because i am new here. he brought boxes of files and he said i'm going to be back in six weeks, and i want you to get on this and read all this stuff and we're going to talk about how we're going to do this. >> this is brant light, who before he showed up at olivia's door, was pointed the state attorney general's chief prosecutor. >> how did you get involved in this particular case? >> well, i had come to the

attorney general's office. there was another chief prosecutor at that time simply didn't think there was enough evidence. i took her position and i told my team, let's look really hard at this. months later after a really hard look, i thought it was a great case. i thought circumstantially it was overwhelming. then brant light met with susie's family after their patience and promised he would issue an arrest warrant for marty larson. >> i saw my family and their family, a good strong family, and to have this death occur, to her get out of a car and never make it to the front door 20 steps and we can't explain to them what happened in those 20 steps, i thought they deserved to find out. >> in february 2012, four years after susie's murder, a phoenix

s.w.a.t. team descended on marty's apartment on his way to work. >> when you knew he was under arrest and in jail, how did it change your life? >> it took a lot of stress off me. >> mr. larson, i'm the assistant chief with the glendive police department. how are you doing? >> and the man who originally took susie's missing person's report sat down to interview marty. >> when i walk in, i expect someone to say you're crazy, i didn't do this, i don't want to talk to you at all. >> but -- >> i found a guy sitting in a chair with his legs crossed and arms across the side. >> i have no idea what happened to her. i don't know how she passed away. that's it. i pretty much knew when i was targeted years ago that something like this could happen at any time. i knew this day would come.

>> he's been thinking in the back of his head that he would be arrested for this crime. >> they took marty back to montana, stuck him in the county jail to await his murder trial, and when the spring of 2012 arrived, it seemed things were finally looking up for susie's family. >> it was a lot of relief. especially mom and dad. >> there was another reason finally for the family to celebrate. susie's eldest child was graduating from circle high school. senior photos were taken, announcemented were printed up and sent out, a party was planned in circle. then the day before the ceremony -- >> she said it's going to be my graduation and my mom is not here to see it. i said i know, but she'll be with you and she cried.

>> mariah and marlene dried their tears and the young girl bounded out of the house and drove away. >> what happened? >> they said she fell asleep. >> went off the road. there were no skid marks or nothing. she hit the ditch and it rolled. that kid could nevada leave without her seat belt on. that night she didn't have it on and it threw her out. >> mariah larson was just 18 years old. >> all i remember is answering the phone and my mom telling me and that's all i remember. i just dropped the phone and just cried. cried and cried and cried. i just couldn't believe that that could happen three times in one family. >> i never really grieved for susie, just like i never really

grieved for rusty until mariah's accident. and that was the day i grieved for all three of them. >> i can't imagine that scope of loss. i know how you -- i don't know how you managed it. >> i don't know either. >> that hit you pretty hard when she was killed. >> yeah. >> is that the point that gets you every time? >> yeah. >> marya was laid to rest in that little cemetery outside circle next to her uncle rusty and her mom susie. >> she had a hard time living without her mom and i guess that's why she finally went to be with them. just about didn't make it through that one. three of them. >> and right along with the

family that day was the new prosecutor on the case. >> it showed me a lot about brant light because he traveled from helena after meeting that girl only one time to her funeral. >> and he had a message for the family and for marty larson. >> it was very clear in this case from both sides there was not going to be any plea negotiations. we never talked negotiations. we simply talked about trial. let's go to trial. >> bravado? circumstantial cases, especially like this one, can be tricky things. coming up, the shoe print, those drag marks, and that surveillance video from the bank. would any of it point to marty? >> it looked like a different person. all of us were a little taken aback. >> when "dateline" continues.

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glendive, as we have said, not a very big place. the walk from susie's apartment door to the dawson county courthouse would take less than a minute. five years from crime to trial. five years and one city block where in april 2013 marty larson finally faced a jury. >> clearly, to me, he was the person that committed that crime. now my chore was to go out and prove it. >> but when marty walked in, the courtroom gasped. >> he didn't look like the picture that i was shown of him. >> he had lost 77 pountds like that, so he looked like a different person. all of us were a little taken aback. >> was it intentional? more on that in a minute. first, prosecutor light listed what he said were motives for marty to kill susie.

motives as old as time. jealousy, pride, rage. >> i think marty was absolutely convinced that he and susan were going to get back together. i really think he thought that was going to happen and then all of a sudden here comes brad. >> that's why, said the prosecutor, and phone records backed it up marty made those phone calls to his estranged wife and ted casey before the murder. alerting these people that something untoward was going on. >> i think at that point he thought, well, let me just break this up. his efforts were all just about breaking them up. >> that effort included e-mails, though marty denied it. >> did you send the e-mails? >> no, it did not. >> a search of marty's computer revealed that he created that e-mail account under the name denise johnson and sent those e-mails to brad asking about how

his wife felt about that girlfriend. when police showed up at marty's door for the very first time -- >> he's erasing things on his computer and defragments the hard drive. >> appeared to be getting rid of something. >> right. >> she and marty last spoke at 9:51 p.m. by then, susie was aware that marty had been trying to sabotage her relationship with brad. after the phone call, susie called her daughter marya with a question. >> i asked her why and she told me because marty was calling and i -- he was calling ted. >> the phone records showed susie stopped returning marty's call. that's why at 1:39 a.m. marty was caught on that gas station camera leaving billings to go to

glendi glendive. >> i think it was his intent to confront her, to find her and confront her about what's going on. >> the jury heard marty left 22 voice mails as he drove over the next three hours. then by his own admission, marty parked right around the corner from susie's apartment building next to the bank. and that's when the bank's atm started telling a story like nothing else could. 4:27 a.m., prosecutors argued this figure right here is marty walking towards susie's apartment. >> our theory was he got to susan's apartment before brad, before she returned, and there's a little concave, a little store front. we believe that's where he was standing. >> that's when he left that footprint found in the dust found in the alcove next to susie's.

brad and susie pulled up in brad's truck. 5:19 a.m., the dome light came on. susie opened the door and got out just steps from her apartment. >> when she stepped out of brad's car, after he had stewed in that concave for 15 to 20 minutes as they were in the car doing whatever they were doing, i think he was extremely angry. i think he confronted her. i think she confronted him right back. >> i think she told him when she was going to continue a relationship with brad and that marty and her were done, he was a no one is going to have susie sort of guy. >> i think that's when he strangled her. >> strangled her, prosecutors argued, but not before susie left those telltale scratch marks on marty's back. he dragged her body across the alley leaving those drag marks near the dumpster.

at 5:38 a.m. a figure walked back towards marty's mini van. >> there's about a five-minute wait. i believe he's putting the body into the back of that van. then you see the van pull aside. >> that, said prosecutors, is when marty started driving back to billings. >> you have a body in your van. i think the river was the fastest and easiest way for him -- and to buy him some time. >> prosecutors produced this video showing marty 78 miles down the road stopping for gas, wearing a white t-shirt and black shoes that were never found. did he throw them away when he dumped her body? at 10:29 a.m., marty was back in billings living his first voice mail in almost five hours. this one with a decidedly different tone. >> good morning, sweetie.

i was just hoping that you would be willing to talk to me. i have my other phone charging right now. if you could, give me a call on this one. thank you. >> totally different tenure. i thought he would have been more angry when she still hasn't returned your calls. >> the final piece of the puzzle for prosecutors? remember how marty vigorously cleaned his mini van inside and out. not quite enough. one hair was found. infor it was in the back of the van where he had put the body. >> we did a mitochondrial dna and it was hers. >> a strong circumstantial case, except the marty who showed up in court did not look a bit like the man in the videos. >> my belief was he tried to change his look so he would not

look like the person who was on the bank atm. there's a big husky guy, maybe 210-pound man, and here's a person who might be 150 pounds, 160 pounds. >> but would it work? good question. afterall, the state's case was entirely circumstantial. there were no eyewitnesses. the bank video was so bad even the judge wondered at times what he was looking at. the defense was yet to come. coming up -- >> ted casey was the one, i believe, who had a real motive. >> was the wrong man on trial? >> i couldn't have done that.

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.. marty larson's defense attorney had one big headline for the jury. >> i don't think anyone knows how this crime happened. >> she is a seasoned and respected montana defense attorney and her review of the prosecution was harsh.

sheer speculation she said. made for a good story, but offered very little in the way of actual proof that marty killed susie. >> i believe there was not enough evidence to bring this case and that's one of the reasons why it wasn't filed for all those years because other prosecutors had determined there wasn't sufficient evidence. >> much more evidence against ted casey, she said. >> ted casey, i believe, is the only one who had a real motive. they were fighting about the children, the monetary aspects of their marriage, and she had indicated to marty on several occasions that she was fearful of ted. and i believed that he has recounting of what he did that morning, had it been proper liga ligal

ly investigated, would have been less than a perfect alibi. >> the defendant himself testified at the trial and agreed to sit down with us too. >> so what do you want people to know about you? >> i guess the main thing is just i had nothing to do with killing susie. i would have never done anything to her or to take her away from my kids or her two little girls. i couldn't have done that. >> marty insisted that his very last contact with susie was that phone call at 9:51 p.m., eight hours before she disappeared. >> what happened in that conversation? why did she not want to talk to you at all afterwards and block your number? >> during that call, she called to ask me -- i don't remember if she asked me or if she accused me of calling ted. >> in fact, you had.

>> i did. >> and she was mad about that. >> yes. i told her i didn't do it and it wasn't me. >> why would you do that? why would you lie about it? >> lying about it was i knew i had done something stupid and i felt guilty about it. why i did it, a lot of it was because of being hurt, because what she had been telling me was that whatever she had, as far as a relationship with brad, she had been telling me for a week to ten days or so that that was over. >> apparently it wasn't. >> no. and i guess somewhere in my head i suspected that and that's why i sent the e-mails. there was a lot of confusion. >> confusion or something else that made him decide to drive three hours to susie's place in the middle of the night. >> that's a bad decision, right? you see that now. >> oh, yeah.

the whole time i was driving i was hoping that she would respond and say i'm fine, so i could just turn around and go home. that was all i wanted was to know she was okay. >> and still marty insisted that when he got to her apartment he just didn't see susie right across the street with that guy brad. no, he claimed he waited for her in a spot where he couldn't have seen her walking to the door. >> that's the part that sticks with me. here's a guy who cares deeply about this woman and what she's up to and he sits where he can't see the entrance to her apartment building? don't give me that. that's crazy. >> i can't make people believe anything. i know what i did. i know where i was. >> listen, you put yourself there. that's the point. you put yourself at the crime scene. >> i put myself in a position for them to look at me. >> right. you had the opportunity.

you had the motive. >> if just being in the vicinity -- >> you could have in other words. >> yes. >> can you see how it looks? >> oh, yeah. i can. i can. there are a lot of things i don't understand myself. i don't understand why, especially now, i couldn't have stayed home and tried to contact her. i thought i could do something to help if she needed help. >> sometimes with a girl like susie the thing you can do to help is to walk away. >> yeah, i think it probably would have been best, at least for me. >> the jury was out about as long as it was for marty larson drove from billings to glendive. the verdict, guilty. >> what was it like to hear that guilty verdict? >> everybody hooped and hollered

and hugged. it was just like a big weight just lifted off of you. >> there's something hugely important about justice. couldn't bring her back, of course, but did the verdict matter? oh, yes. >> it really did set my mind at ease. it really did help us to move on. >> the first thing i do is to tern turn to the family. i love to look in their eyes and see the smiles on their faces and the joy they have. for me, that's what it's all about. >> i'll never have another time that i loved being a prosecutor than i did right then. >> this is where mar tty larson lives right now. >> what did they sentence you to? >> 110 years. >> your first parole possibility is what? >> 2042. >> that's a long wait. >> yes, it is.

>> but of course it's far more than just a long wait for susie, rusty, marya. >> i can't understand how the guilt and the emotions aren't just consuming him because losing her is still consuming us. >> he took her life and he took part of our hearts, but he'll never break this family up and he hasn't. >> no, he hasn't. shea, just 12 when his mom was murdered, graduated from high school in 2013. ted and susie's daughters were junior bridesmaid when their aunt val remarried. but there are too many from this

family in the circle village cemetery. they just learn to work around it. they go on. >> we're not victims. we're survivors. survivors keep on living life. and we're survivors. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." we'll see you again next friday at 9:00, 8:00 central. i'll see you each weeknight for "nbc nightly news."

now at 11:00, a senseless act of rage. we're getting new reaction of a family in a hit-and-run victim in new information from police. plus that salmonella scare goes